5 New Year’s Party Games - end your year with a bang!

Add any of these New Year’s party games to your New Year’s Eve and you’ll be guaranteed a memorable send off.

New Year’s is the time to say cheerio to the past year and howdy to a brand new, fresh start.

It’s the time of year a whole fireworks display can go off in the street (like this one in Dietweg, Germany) – and none of the neighbours mind…

…which makes it a perfect reason to party.

But no party is ever complete without games.

Games can bring a fun energy to your party by helping people break the ice easier. These New Year’s party games also offer guests an alternative to dancing or getting drunk.

Let’s get started.

Secret Identity

This game encourages people to mingle as well as bring out their creativity.

You’ll need Post It notes, sellotape and pens to play.

Give everyone two minutes to write down the name of a famous person who has been in the news during the year.

Ask them to choose names everyone else will know – an actor, politician, sports or music celebrity.

Each person now gets a famous name stuck to their back.

Players now move about, asking each other Yes/No questions to work out who they are. Each player is only allowed to ask one person one question, before moving on.

The player who can guess their celebrity with the least questions wins.

What Lie?

This New Year’s party game’s all about testing how well you know each other. Even if you’re playing with strangers, it’s a fun way to relax.

Give everyone a couple of minutes to think of two truths and a lie from their personal life. Make sure the truths are wacky and the lie itself is believable, so that it’s harder to guess which is what.

Then each person takes it in turns to share their three statements, with everyone as a group left to guess the lie.

Once the actual lie is revealed, the next person has their go.

Timely Charades

This is a New Year’s Eve version of the regular game, with players acting out a book, movie or song title, or event that made the news that year.

Split into two teams. Give both teams 3 minutes to write down the names of things on strips of paper for the opposite team to act out

Place both sets of papers in separate hat

The first player takes a paper from the opposite team’s hat and acts out the phrase – without talking! Only mime is allowed

It’s up to their team to guess the phrase. Decide how long teams can guess; if no guess is made before the time is up, no point is awarded

Now a player from the opposite team takes their turn. And so on.

Keep alternating until the round is complete. The team with the most correct guesses wins.

Truth or Dare

Okay, it’s a daring choice in this list of more gentle New Year’s party games, but will leave behind fun memories.

Make sure everyone’s onboard with playing – Truth or Dare works best when played in good spirit. Keep in mind who you’ll be inviting to your party, as you think up truths and dares.

Place your truths and dares in separate bowls before starting your game.

Need a few ideas for dares? Check out these.

Get everyone sat together in a circle, and start the game by spinning the bottle at its center

The person it points to once it stops has to choose a truth or a dare, picking their choice from one of the two bowls.

The game continues when their challenge is complete.

Clothes Pegs

You’ll need six or more players for this game. Unlike other New Year’s party games, this one’s played throughout your party. You’ll need plenty of clothes pegs to play (players will need at least five each).

Decide as a group which three words will be banned for the duration of your party. These will be words no one is allowed to say.

In this case, you might choose “New Year’s”, “Christmas” and “next year”

You want to choose words that’ll be difficult not to say, so commonly used words are the easiest choice.

Now give each person five clothes pegs, to pin on their clothing.

Explain to players how they take clothes pegs off another player if they catch that person saying a forbidden word.

So if Terry asks Julian how his Christmas went, Julian (if he’s paying attention) can point out the forbidden word and ask for one of Terry’s clothes pegs.

Players who lose all their pegs can use the forbidden words freely again.

But they can also rejoin the game, by trying to get remaining players to say the words.

The player who collects the most clothes pegs wins a special New Year’s Eve prize (make it a good one).